Tuft & Needle Review

on April 27, 2015

The Tuft & Needle mattress is unique in many ways and I've absolutely learned to love it in the 6 months since I've started using it. Before I get started on my personal experience in using the mattress, I'll talk a little about how it's different than many other mattresses, in a good way of course.
If you have been reading up and researching on mattresses as long as I have, you'll realize that many mattress companies are guilty of slapping a couple of slabs of foam together, ...

9.4Total Score

Tuft & Needle 10" Mattress

The Tuft & Needle is our favorite mattress by far. Despite our love for memory foam mattresses, Tuft & Needle manages to edge out its competition thanks to its perfect balance of firmness and comfort.

Amazon Rating (out of 850+ reviews)

9.6

Editor's Rating

10

Comfort

9.5

Popularity

8.5

Value For Money

9.5

The Tuft & Needle mattress is unique in many ways and I’ve absolutely learned to love it in the 6 months since I’ve started using it. Before I get started on my personal experience in using the mattress, I’ll talk a little about how it’s different than many other mattresses, in a good way of course.

If you have been reading up and researching on mattresses as long as I have, you’ll realize that many mattress companies are guilty of slapping a couple of slabs of foam together, adding another comfort layer or two in between them like a burger, attaching impressive labels to it like ultimate dreams, comfort sleep, extra-plush, therapeutic surface and more, and calling it a day.

In the end, most of them are basically shuffling the same patented foam around, inventing new names and stamping their brands on top of the mattress. It’s not like I have a thing against them doing this, but it gets confusing trying to determine the differences and finding a suitable mattress when they have too many jargons mixed up in the middle of everything.

Tuft & Needle does it differently

Tuft & Needle, on the other hand, has taken the less traveled road in creating their very own mattress. They do not use the same memory foam, latex or other types of patented materials for their mattress.

Instead, they’ve scraped everything off the board and started from scratch. By mixing and creating their very own foam composition, they have complete control over the entire process in terms of the firmness, comfort, support, cooling and other factors that they want in their mattress.

The result? A single type of 2-layered mattress that’s only sold differently in terms of its sizes and thicknesses. The reception of this mattress was amazing and Tuft & Needle propelled to the top. It doesn’t end there though.

While everything was going really well for them, there were still some complaints, albeit very limited, coming in from their customers regarding the heat and firmness of the mattress. Taking into account their customers’ feedback, Tuft & Needle went back to the drawing board and engineered a new formulation and design for their mattress. From the original 3 foam layers, they’ve reduced it to 2. Their new foam also has improved cooling attributes in addition to being a lot softer than it was previously. I would have rated their previous firmness level at a 7/10, but now I would give it an easy 5 or 6, which is the ideal target for any mattresses at all. If it’s any softer, it’ll run the risk of lacking the necessary body support.

Personal Experience

I’ll admit though, it was sort of an impulsive buy for me. At the time, I was still sleeping on my 6-year old innerspring mattress that I’ve bought for a discount in a mall, but it was sagging pretty badly towards the middle where I slept every night.

Because of that, I developed a bad posture over the years. It wasn’t until I started getting backaches as well that I was convinced that I needed a new mattress.

When I finally took the initiative to look for one, I started my hunt in mattress stores but most of the salesmen I met seem more intent on impressing me with their marketing speak than anything. Suffice to say, I decided to do my own research online and so I proceeded to conduct an extensive amount of research on the right mattress for me. I did this over a couple of sessions, but they mostly ended up in frustration because of more technological gibberish being thrown at me page after page. I did get a general idea on the differences between the mattress types though.

I then came across an article on Fortune featuring the Tuft & Needle mattress and company. After checking it out further on Amazon and being subsequently amazed by its tremendous rating, I didn’t bother reading up more about what it’s made of or whether it’s particularly suitable for me.

At that time, I was just so tired of doing any further reading that I wanted it over with. After all, with the staggering amount of excellent reviews that it had, it should be really good right?

Initial Impression

I’m not going to waste your time telling you about the unpacking process, because I personally wouldn’t care about that. My initial impression when I first laid on it was that it felt a lot firmer than my previous innerspring mattress (the newly improved Tuft & Needle mattress is a lot softer though). I wasn’t too worried though, since I figured I’m new to foam mattresses and I’ll just have to get used to it, which I did after slightly over a week of using it.

I also realized that my backaches felt subsequently less noticeable in just a week of sleeping on it. I became a convert in my third week of using it. My constant backaches had disappeared entirely and I’m positive that this mattress was the only reason for it (besides my memory foam pillow, which I’ve purchased at roughly the same time).

Underneath the cover, the actual mattress’s top layer is made of 3 inches of custom polyfoam, but it’s quite unlike memory foam, which feels rougher and a lot less bouncy. I’d say it’s a middle ground between latex (bounciest) and memory foam (least bouncy). The support layer at the bottom is made out of 7 inches of foam.

Many of the denser foam mattresses also come with cooling problems, but not this one. I’m rather sensitive to heat myself, and I sweat very easily, so believe me when I say that this mattress doesn’t have any problems with its cooling at all. Apparently, the composition of the foam is such that heat is able to escape through the sides and bottom of the mattress instead of being trapped at the surface where you’ll be lying on.

5-inch or 10-inch

This mattress has 2 thickness options. If you’re a heavy person of 90 kg or 200 pounds or more, you’ll definitely want to get the 10-inch version or else it’ll just feel extremely firm to you. Even though I weigh a mere 70 kg myself, I still opted for the 10-inch mattress because I wanted my mattress to feel as soft as it can be.

Warranty

Warranty’s a big thing for me. In this case, Tuft & Needle offers a decent 10 years warranty. I wouldn’t settle for anything less than that, since 6-7 years would be around the time when most mattresses start to really wear out and problems like sinking will start to surface.

Price

As far as the price is concerned, a 10-inch queen-sized mattress would cost about $600, which is very reasonable if you were to compare it to mattresses of a similar quality. From my somewhat extensive experience of lying on plenty of mattresses in the stores, I would have expected to pay close to $1,000 for a mattress of an equal tier. The quality is simply there, from the intricate cover stitches to the confident support of the mattress itself. Sure, you could probably get by with a $100 mattress, but if you want great sleep, expect to fork out more for it.

We're a bunch of mattress enthusiasts/semi-experts that have gathered to provide a simple, yet useful guide for people who're looking for the best mattresses. After failing to find a simplified, yet reliable source of information regarding mattresses online, we decided to research and compile our own data instead. This is the result of many hours of research both online and out in the real world.